1260 DAYS REVISITED
Anyone who reads or studies Bible prophecy has heard of the 1,260, 1,290, and 1,335 days mentioned in the Books of Daniel and Revelation. Well, I recently received a Bible study from Pastor F.M. Riley titled The Open Door . . . Is About to Close. Here’s a quote of one paragraph to whet your appetite, “But let’s narrow this down even further. From the day of “firstfruits,” April 20, 2014 to “Yom Kippur, the Great Day of Atonement,” September 30, 2017is exactly 1,260 days, the exact number of days in the first half of the Tribulation period. This day of atonement on the Jewish calendar will be the weekly Sabbath Day, Tishri 10, 5778 or September 30, 2017. Coincidence? Sure, when donkeys start flying, strumming banjos and braying Yankee Doodle Dandy! Count the days for yourself! Glory to God! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! ”
So, who can resist counting those days for ourselves? Today we have great websites to help us do so. Follow these links to verify Pastor Riley’s statement: http://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=4&d1=20&y1=2014&m2=9&d2=30&y2=2017&ti=on
1,260 days are a perfect prophetic 3 ½ year period of 42, 30-day months. 42 X 30 = 1,260 days. So, will Day of First Fruits, Resurrection Day, Easter Sunday, April 20, 2014, kick off the Tribulation years? Let’s see if we can answer that question in this post.
One point that is exciting about starting the count up to mid-tribulation from the Day of First Fruits, is that it is the day Yahweh told Israel to begin the count of 7 Sabbaths to the Feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost! So, this day is important for beginning the Omer count; could it also be significant to begin a prophetic count this year of 2014? It’s possible. Yahweh could be giving us a hint and some help in knowing when to begin the count of the Tribulation years! Some prophecy teachers believe the numbered days don’t begin until mid-tribulation, but Pastor Riley makes a good argument for counting up to the mid-tribulation.
Unfortunately, Pastor Riley is a pre-tribulation rapture theory proponent, which viewpoint taints his otherwise excellent Bible studies. I’m not yet Scripturally convinced of a pre-tribulation Rapture/Resurrection. If someone can show me Scripture on how you can have the LAST Trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15:52, the rapture/resurrection scenario, occur BEFORE the FIRST Trumpet of Revelation 8:6-7, the beginning of the 7th seal, then I might be convinced of a pre-tribulation rapture/resurrection. Until then, I’ll stick with the rapture later in the tribulation years.
Study it for yourselves, my friends: 1 Corinthians 15:51-57 HRB “Behold, I speak a mystery to you: We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed. 52In a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet; for a trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed. 53For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54But when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then will take place the Word that has been written, “Death was swallowed up in victory.” (Isa. 25:8) 55“O death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?” (Hos. 13:14) 56Now the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the Law; 57but thanks be to Yahweh who gives us the victory through our Master Yahshua Messiah!”
That word “LAST” in verse 52 is the Greek word eschatos, Strong’s # G2078, which means farthest or final. This tells us that Paul is specifically talking about something that happens in the end times, or last days, at the END of the final days of mankind. Not much else, except Yahshua’s return to earth, can happen AFTER this event in verse 52. Here’s Thayer’s Lexicon definitions: 1) extreme
1a) last in time or in place
1b) last in a series of places
1c) last in a temporal succession
2) the last
2a) last, referring to time
If Paul’s trumpet in 1 Corinthians 15:52 is the “LAST” trumpet, which it is, then there is no more time left for the first six trumpets found in Revelation. That is why I believe Paul’s trumpet is part of the 7th trumpet of Revelation. You can’t have the LAST trumpet sounding BEFORE the first six!! The last trumpet of the end times CANNOT sound the beginning of the end times; “it’s illogical, captain”, as Mr. Spock would say.
The real question on our minds is: will we be raptured/resurrected on or before the Day of First Fruits, 2014? Now, I’m going to quote Pastor Riley’s study in its entirety for your consideration and study. Will he answer this question for us?
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The Open Door
Is about to Close…..
By Pastor F. M. Riley
April 4, 2014
“I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee [out in front of you; in your future] an open door [a door having been opened], and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not defiled My name,” Revelation 3:8. KJV & Greek text
“After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened [having been opened] in heaven: and the first voice which I heard [the voice which I heard at the first…Revelation 1:10-16] was as it were a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter [after these things of the church age], Revelation 4:1. KJV & Greek text
Introduction
The Lord Jesus Christ has much to say about the “door” in His inspired Word. Finally, these many references to the “door” in the prophetic Scriptureshave all come together in a harmonious sequence. And that sequence is the subject matter of this study. Join us for an enlightening study…..
Christ and the Open Doors
That these “doors” have to do with the fulfillment of end-time prophecy in relation to the nation and people of Israel, and the coming of Christ is made clear by the statement of the Lord Himself in The Parable of The Fig Tree in Matthew 24:32-35. In 24:33 the Lord explicitly stated, “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.” Notice that in this passage the Lord explicitly said “doors” [plural]. He did not say “door” [singular]. This is because there are two phases to the return of Christ, whether some want to believe it or not. In returning back to mankind, Christ will first come “in the air” for His New Covenant Gentile church bride and people, then seven years later He will come back to the earth visibly and bodily with all of His redeemed “saints” to destroy His enemies and establish His Millennial Kingdom upon the earth, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Zechariah 14:5; 1 Thessalonians 3:13. This means that the “doors” of Heaven are going to be opened twice, once at the time of the resurrection and rapture, and then again seven years later when Christ bodily and visibly returns at the end of the Tribulation, Revelation 19:11-21. This is not hard to see or understand if those who “profess” to be Christians would just receive God’s Word at face value for what it actually and literally says, rather than refusing to believe it and attempting to explain it away or outright deny it.
When was the Door Opened…..?
In the letter to the church at Philadelphia, the Lord explicitly told His church that He would set out in front of them [Greek text] “a door, having been opened,” Revelation 3:8. It is not just “coincidence” that the letter to the church at Philadelphia correlates with that period of time in this present church age from approximately 1750 to 1948. This was the greatest period of evangelism, missionary activity, and teaching the Word of God to mankind which had occurred in church history since the Apostolic period.
It was no “coincidence” that during this time of intense Bible study and teaching of the Word, the teaching of the Pre-tribulation rapture of God’s people came to the forefront again among the churches and the ranks of Christianity. Those today who claim that it was “invented” during this period of time obviously don’t know much about Christian history, for the Pre-tribulation rapture was not only taught by Paul and John, but such early “church fathers” as Hippolytus were teaching it in the 4th century of Christianity. There has never been a time in Christian history when there were not at least a few believers teaching the Pre-tribulation rapture. Hello!
When was the “door” Christ spoke of in the Philadelphian church letter actually and literally opened? To find the answer to this question we need to remember what the Lord said about His coming [parousia] in the end time being exactly like it was “in the days of Noah,” Luke 17:26-27. So what happened in the days of Noah?
In Genesis 6:1-2 is recorded the sin of “the sons of God” [wicked angels] in cohabiting with women and producing a race of beings [nephilim] who were not true humans. If any reader desires more insight into this, I will be glad to send my Bible study entitled There were Giants in the Earth upon receiving your request. It was this specific act which appears to have moved the Lord God to establish a limit to the “days” of mankind upon the earth in the very next Scripture, “And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years,” Genesis 6:3. So at the exact time that the fallen angels began interfering with the DNA of the human race, the Lord God gave what is commonly referred to as the 120 year warning which preceded the flood in “the days of Noah.”
At that point, or shortly thereafter, during this 120 year period the Lord God spoke to Noah, warning him, “I will destroyman whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” Genesis 6:7-8.
Upon receiving that warning of coming destruction, Noah began to preach the Lord’s warning to mankind, and to “prepare an ark to the saving of his house,” condemning the wickedness of the world, and becoming “heir of the righteousness which is by faith,”Hebrews 11:7; 2 Peter 2:5. I would emphasize that the ark which Noah prepared had only one “door,” Genesis 6:16.
Keep in mind that all that mankind had to do to was believe Noah’s message, repent, and receive the Lord God whom Noah preached in order to escape the impending destruction. But they refused to believe what Noah was preaching! Nevertheless right on schedule, exactly in the 120th year, just as the Lord had said, the flood came, Noah and his family went into the ark, “and the Lord shut him in,” Genesis 7:16. In other words, the Lord God shut “the door.”
Again, I remind our readers that the Lord God explicitly stated, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man,” Luke 17:20-21.
Now let’s move forward in human history to the exact time in human history when the Lord God began the process of regathering the scattered Jewish people out from among the nations of the world, and stirring their hearts to have a land and home of their own again. That exact year was 1897.
It was in 1897 that Theodor Herzl convened the First Jewish Congress which met in Basel, Switzerland for the express purpose of searching out a national homeland for the Jewish people. The Jewish people had been scattered into all the nations of the world since 70 A.D., and yet had managed to survive as a people throughout those 1,827 years. But they had never forgotten that they were once a great people with a great nation and a great king (David). After all of those years, individually and as a people, they were longing to “go home.” At that First Jewish Congress the Zionist Movement was born, with the stated purpose of finding a national homeland for the Jewish people and re-establishing their nation among the nations of the world. 1897 was a most important year, for I am personally convinced that it marked the “beginning of the end” of this present dispensation and age, and therefore the time when “the door” was opened.
Right here I would like to inject a historical fact that many of God’s people are not even aware occurred. Precisely in 1897 was the first sighting of a UFO in modern history. This occurred in Aurora, Texas in April of 1897 when a space ship of some kind crashed into a windmill during a windstorm. This was six years before the Wright brothers invented the airplane. Yet there it was, seen by many eye witnesses at the time, flying through the sky over Aurora, Texas and reported on in the newspapers of that time. It is my conviction that at the same time the Lord God made a move to resurrect and restore the nation and people of Israel, the fallen angels began their end-time work of attempting to infect the DNA of humanity again. Yes, I do believe that these UFO’s we hear about, for the most part, that have been showing up in the skies particularly since Israel became a nation again are demonic craft piloted by fallen angels, demons, and nephilim.
Remember that 1947 was the year that the U.N. voted to partition the holy land into two separate states, one for the Jews and the other for the Arabs. This vote in August of 1947 [exactly 50 years to the day after the First Jewish Congress in August of 1897] directly led to the re-establishment of Israel as a nation the following year in May of 1948. Again, just “coincidence?” Are our readers aware that there is no word for “coincidence” in the Hebrew language? None!
To emphasize the importance of 1897 I want our readers to know how it fits into the pattern of end-time Bible prophecy, and the closing of “the door.” I have already pointed out that in “the days of Noah” a 120 year warning was given. Go back and read it again in Genesis 6:3. The Lord emphatically stated in that passage that man’s days, because that the whole of mankind upon the earth, was almost totally given over to rebellion and wickedness against God, would be only 120 years. It is glaringly obvious that at the exact end of that 120 years the flood came on the earth wiping out all living things except those in the ark. That ark then was literally the “ark of safety.”
When will the Door Close?…..
Now if we apply this same truth to mankind living today upon the earth, what do we find? Don’t miss this! Read it over if you have to, but let it soak in. It is exactly 120 years from 1897 to 2017. Hello! 2017 is the year that marks the middle of the Tribulation period. The middle of the Tribulation period begins “the hour of His [God’s] judgment,” Revelation 14:6-7. The “hour of His judgment” refers to the last half of the Tribulation period, when all wicked, God hating, Christ rejecting humanity will be destroyed from off the face of the earth, exactly as all wicked, God hating, Christ rejecting humanity was destroyed in “the days of Noah.” See my study entitled The Two Hours. It will be sent to any reader upon request. This is significant enough,…..
But let’s narrow this down even further. From the day of “firstfruits,” April 20, 2014 to “Yom Kippur, the Great Day of Atonement,” September 30, 2017,is exactly 1,260 days, the exact number of days in the first half of the Tribulation period. This day of atonement on the Jewish calendar will be the weekly Sabbath Day, Tishri 10, 5778 or September 30, 2017. Coincidence? Sure, when donkeys start flying, strumming banjos and braying Yankee Doodle Dandy! Count the days for yourself! Glory to God! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
What this indicates is that the Day of Atonement, September 30, 2017, is the exact middle of the Tribulation period on earth. Now just back up 1,260 days from Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in 2017, and see if this gives our readers any idea of when the resurrection and rapture is going to occur this year? When the resurrection and rapture occurs, “the door” to be raptured and escape the terrible Tribulation period will swing “shut” for every living person on earth who has refused to believe the multiplicity of warnings given by all “preachers of righteousness” today, just as “the door” was “shut” in “the days of Noah.” Are you listening?
More “Coincidences?”
This year, Easter, April 20, 2014, the day the religious world has set aside to observe the resurrection of Christ Jesus, perfectly coincides with “firstfruits” on the calendar God gave to Israel in Exodus 12. What I am saying plainly, is that April 20, 2014 is “the morrow after the Sabbath” following Passover, Leviticus 23:9-11. It is therefore the exact same day Jesus Christ was resurrected from among the dead in 30 A.D. Now is it just “coincidence” that Easter and “firstfruits” fall on the exact same day this year? Amazing enough?
Well let me add to this information. This year the Gregorian calendar used by we Gentiles today, the calendar used by the Greek Orthodox Eastern Catholic religion, and the Jewish calendar which God gave to Israel in Exodus 12, all correlate together in perfect harmony exactly on April 20th, 2014, Abib 20, 5774, the exact day Christ rose from the dead in 30 A.D.. Glory to God! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
But let’s not stop here! It is now well known and documented that April 15, 2014, the day the modern religious Jews observe Passover, is also the first in a series of “blood moons.” In other words, a total lunar eclipse will occur that day, causing the Moon to appear as blood red. Now read the inspired prophecy of Acts 2:19-20. Well…???
What does all of this mean?
I would have to be a “close minded” religionist, if I said that all of these things coming together in perfect harmony this very month, in fact, in just another 16 days, are just “coincidence” and that nothing of any prophetic significance is going to occur. There likely are some who will read this who qualify as “close minded” religionists, but I am not one of them! I believe God’s Word, and by the grace of God I have spiritual discernment, so that I can discern the hand of God moving in human events to fulfill His Word and bring this present dispensation and age to a close.
Back to the “Door”
A few weeks ago I wrote and posted a Bible study entitled “After.” In that study I pointed out that it is “After” the church age has ended in Revelation 3:22, that we see John in Revelation 4:1 saying that he saw “a door was opened in heaven…” [having been opened…Greek text], and John then hears the Lord say to him, “Come up hither.” This is obviously a foreshadowing of the rapture of God’s people. The rapture then occurs in a brief transition period immediately following the end of the church age, and before the Lord God in Heaven begins to open the seven seals on “the little book,” Revelation 5:1-5; 6:1.
Wake up dear readers. We are living in that transition period right now as I write. The church age, I am personally convinced, ended on March 31,2014, with the last day of Adar on the Jewish calendar which the Lord God Himself gave to Israel. A brand new year began with Abib [Nisan] 1 on April 1st. Oh yes, it is also highly significant that the month of April this year correlates exactly day by day with the calendar month in which Christ was crucified in 30 A.D. Another “coincidence?” Not hardly! Those readers who cannot see the hand of God in all of these things coming together this month likely need to receive Christ for real as their own personal Savior. It is so much later than many today want to believe!
Conclusion
Folks, following the rapture, as foreshadowed by John in Revelation 4:1, the “door” to Heaven will be shut, just as the “door” to the ark was shut in “the days of Noah.” Any reader of this Bible study who hasn’t received Christ on or before the Jewish holy day of “firstfruits,” April 20, 2014, will likely miss the rapture and be left right here on earth to enter into and face the terrible Tribulation period. Remember that Christ is the ONE who “openeth, and no man shutteth,” but Christ is also the ONE “that shutteth, and no man openeth,” Revelation 3:7. It will not do a bit of good for a person who misses the rapture to cry out to the Lord to “open unto us.” It did no good for the people in “the days of Noah” to beat on the door of the ark and cry out to Noah to open the door. Read this truth for yourself in Luke 13:24-27.
The Lord God has warned all humanity to “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man,” Luke 21:36. You have possibly 15 days [or perhaps even less…???] to receive Christ as your own personal Savior, or “the door” of Heaven will slam shut, and you will be left here on earth to go into the terrible Tribulation period. Is that what you really want? If not, then you better get serious about seeking and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior right now in the few days that you may have left. How? Get on your knees and face before God, and cry out to Him in earnest, sincere prayer until the answer comes. But what if He doesn’t immediately answer? Then just stay with it for the long haul until you receive the answer.
I have a sister in Christ, now deceased and in Heaven with the Lord, who told me how that under deep conviction she sought the Lord for months, not really knowing how to seek Him. Finally, under deep conviction one night she simply cried out in prayer, Lord, I believe that you died for me, and paid for my sin at Calvary, yet I don’t know what I have to do to receive you as my Savior. If I die in my lost, sinful condition, I will go to hell trusting you.” She related to me that at that instant, when she had come to the end of her own resources, the Lord graciously saved her. Dear reader, He will do the same for you.
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him,” John 3:36. Read John 3:3-8, 3:16, 5:24, 14:6, Acts 4:12, 16:30-31, Romans 10:8-13, Ephesians 2:8-10, and Titus 3:5.
Whether some want to believe it or not, the Pre-tribulation rapture will occur…..
And the Door will Close!
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Permission is granted to any true believer or Bible believing Christian ministry to reproduce this study to share with others, or to quote from it in context as written.
NOTICE….The past two days we have had terrible storms in central Missouri with lightning, hail, high winds, tornadoes, and massive amounts of rain resulting in flooding. Those readers who have attempted to call me need to know that my phone was knocked out and is still out as I write. I hope to have it working again in another day or two, but just know why I haven’t been able to answer the phone. I am physically okay, and thank each one who has tried to contact me and are praying for me.
Please address all comments, questions, and correspondence to: Pastor F. M. Riley, Last Call Gospel Ministry, 184 County Road 108, Harisburg, Missouri 65256, or I can still be contacted by email at
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Blessings this new Hebrew year,
Gene Benjamin II
April 6, 2014 AD